This is really long.

I know I said I was going to kept posting over the summer...So two months into it, here's a post!

This summer has been semi hectic, becasue my family is selling our house. Unfortunately, my camera cord is packed away somewhere unknown, so I can't share the quite colorful before and quite bland after picture of my room. But once I can get to that, I'll post it!

I meant to post about Peter's Valley as soon as I got back, while I was still on a Peter's Valley high, but I got back like 2 weeks ago, though I'm still very fond of the place. I made Damascus steel! It was so cool! Once again, I wish I could post pictures! I worked in the blacksmithing studio and it was like the coolest thing ever. It was just such a completely different experience than I've ever had. At first I was disappointed that I wasn't doing a fine metals workshop, but I'm really glad I got placed where I did. The blacksmithing studio was a really great environment, and everyone there was just so helpful and welcoming. I was definitely nervous going in, especially becasue I had no previous blacksmithing experience, but the people were just so great, and I recommend Peter's Valley completely to any of you guys.

My instructor, Neil Kessler, was fantastic. Go to his gallery link for examples of really cool Damascus steel. I did a five day workshop, and it was so fun and rewarding. Man, I have never been that tired and sore in all parts of me before, but it was so worth it.

Right now I just have bars on Damascus steel. I want to make jewelry out of them, but I'm not exactly sure how to approach this, especially because most of the studio tools are not to be used on steel. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I'm also working on how to work some of it in to my honors thesis. I have some ideas for that and I've done some development of it, but not enough to be ready to share.

In August I'll be up in Towson again, working till 5 on weekdays and then spending my evenings in the studio, making production work for club sales and developing my thesis. But before that, I'm going to California for 2 weeks starting Saturday!! I'll mainly be in the bay area, but I'll be going a little South of there. I'm going to go see Velvet da Vinci while I'm there, so hopefully, when I find my camera cord, I will just have so many pictures to post on here.

This post got ridiculously long. I apologize.

Miranda Meilleur

I was reading the ICFF show coverage by DesignSponge and saw these by Miranda Meilluer. All the delicate peircings are really beutiful. Seriously, I really love her stuff.


I wish that I could find a more complete picture of this bracelte, but I really like what I can see of it!
That spoon is awesome.

Brand Yourself

This was a fun one. I think branding and marketing is so interesting, b/c we all know how there's so much marketing and commercials out there, but seriously. There are so many little things that are done through marketing that it's hard to notice them all in this consumer culture. Ads, brands, logos. There are everywhere. They're all over campus on the sidewalk in chalk. And I think it's often easy to disregard things like GO TO CAMPUSVIXEN.COM as just another college student, an innocent plug, but people really get paid to do those sorts of things.
OK back to the article. I pretty much just agree with it. But I think it's a hard thing to do, to brand yourself and figure out who/what your market is. At least it would be for me, but I don't like categorizing what kind of music I listen to--makes me a little uncomfortable? I feel like I constantly redefine what I think of myself as, and well, having to commit to a brand for me to tell people publicly on at least a semi-large scale? What if it changes really soon? I'll need to get new business cards. And clients.

What is Product Design?

I liked this one a lot. I liked the timeline-it was helpful to get that visual. This article talked a lot of about different periods in design, which coincided nicely with my History of Modern Design class this semester. It was cool to read about that in another context, and I'm sure that that will happen again. The reading asked a lot of good questions. Some of which I feel like I'm already trying to figure out. I liked that. This reading had a lot of good quotes. So I'm going to list them?
"Product life cycles shorten as fashion and technological improvements affect our product selection criteria. How can we create in more innovative and challenging ways to embrace new social trends?" Haha what a great question. The answer is harder.
"Is it a designer's responsibility to be designing for our future and to find new and effective ways of producing what people what?" I wouldn't say that it's a designer's responsibility to figure out what people will want in the future; however I think they might want to make it their responsibility if they want to be successful and come up with the idea first.
"An object becomes a desirable product when it gives the appearance of having improved functionality; additional cultural meanings or additional processes in design or production create an increased demand for a product. Demand requires improved production methods to enable adequate supply."
"The quest for individuality and mass appeal will always be the designer's focus, with an everlasting note to self-keep an eye on the present, understand the past, and look towards the future." That's a little daunting, but makes sense.
I really like the disposable mobile phones! I had never heard of that before. The things people come up with...How cool!

Skin

Skin was an interesting read. I liked that they defined the differences between 3-d modeling software. It helped me understand Rhino better. "[Cartesian] is based on locators for every point, line, plane, or curve in the Cartesian X, Y, and Z coordinate system. In contrast, programs based on NURB [what Rhino is] splines and curves use algorithmic formulas to allow lines and surfaces to be adjusted and recalculated continuously." Helpful!

The Marcel Wanders Airborne Snotty Vases are really cool. I think I'm partially drawn to that b/c I sneeze kind of a lot. But I'm interested in the form that that would create. How interesting. And he like scanned the sneeze with a 3-d scanner, which is really neat after seeing 3-d scanners at Direct Dimensions. "Digital tools have allowed Wanders not only to work with form that is beyond the grasp of human vision, but to work with forms of an extreme complexity from the design phase to production."

I'll leave this post with a line I really enjoyed at the end of the article. "What results is a strange fetishism of the consumer object, an emphasis on the intimate interface between technology and the living body."

Blogging on Articles

For some reason, I really have a hard time making myself blog about assigned readings. Not that I'm great at general blogging, but if I find something I like and have given it some thought, I don't mind posting. I really don't like blogging on the assigned readings though. I think it stems from really not liking to take notes/being not so good at note taking. Which works out ok b/c I tend to remember what was said or can take ques from a couple word description. But basically, I feel like its note taking that I'm showing to people.
I do the readings but I put off blogging about them. But I know that if I don't I will really regret it in the next couple weeks when I receive my grades.....

TED

So I stopped by Conceptual Metalsmithing for the first time in a while today, and I saw this post about TED.com and decided to check it out. It looks really cool. TED stands for Technology Entertainment Design. TED brings people from these fields together annually to give 18 minute talks. The website archives the speeches, and looking though the list of speakers was impressive. There was actually a theme of talks entitled Design Like You Give a Damn. There was also a speech given by the creative director of IDEA, the editor of Wired, and the cofounders of Google.

I'm going to make TED a summer thing.